Antibiotic Resistance: The Next Challenges

G3) Antibiotic Resistance: The Next Challenges

There is near-universal recognition now that antibiotic resistance, generated by overuse and misuse in medicine and agriculture, is a grave global problem. It accounts for an estimated 700,000 deaths per year and is predicted to rise to 10 million deaths per year by mid-century. Given that knowledge, what are we to do?

Speakers on this panel will explore global policy attempts to curb overuse, from China’s ban on use of the last-resort drug colistin in agriculture to India’s attempts to rein in over-the-counter sales by middlemen. We will explore initiatives to create new handheld diagnostic technology that will reduce medical misuse of antibiotics and look at the initiatives to identify new antibiotic compounds to fill the diminished pipeline.